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Army Announces Plans to Reactivate 7th Infantry Division

JOINT BASE LEWIS-McCHORD, Wash., April 26, 2012  The secretary of the Army announced plans today to reactivate the 7th Infantry Division and stand up its headquarters here.

Secretary of the Army John McHugh speaks during a press conference April 26, 2012, in which he announces that the Army will reactivate the7th Infantry Divion on Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Wash. U.S. Army photo by Scott Hansen(Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available.

The two-star headquarters, which will oversee the training and readiness of five of the installation's 10 brigades, will fill an administrative layer between those units and I Corps. The division headquarters will not be deployable, John McHugh said during a press conference on the installation.

"The I Corps headquarters has been very, very busy ... It's only reasonable, it seems to me, to provide that layer of close-on command support just as we have at virtually every other similar-sized base," McHugh said.

The intent is to install a new level of leadership and oversight to support those units, and ensure that soldiers are properly trained, equipped and mentored.

McHugh's announcement comes after a period of massive growth for the base. Since 2003, the installation has grown by roughly 15,000 soldiers and seen a military construction program totaling $1.75 billion, putting it among the largest bases in the United States.

In spite of this, the base does not have an intermediate level of command between the corps and many of its major subordinate units.

The soon-to-be reactivated division will encompass 2nd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division; 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division; 4th Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division; 17th Fires Brigade and 16th Combat Aviation Brigade, for a total of some 17,000 Soldiers. But as a nondeployable headquarters, the new division headquarters and its estimated 250 personnel will primarily focus on making sure soldiers are properly trained and equipped, and that order and discipline is maintained in its subordinate brigades.

"When you have the number of soldiers, the number of civilian personnel, the number of other service components in one location as they do here at JBLM, (having) eyes on those units ... is enormously important," McHugh said.

McHugh denied that the decision to create a division on the installation came in response to recent incidents involving soldiers from the base, emphasizing that the plan to station a division headquarters on the installation has been in progress for some time. He defended the base, saying it faces the same challenges as other similar installations.

"(JBLM) is a challenged base to the extent that virtually all our other power projection bases have been challenged ... but to suggest that there are numbers of challenges that exist here that don't exist in other areas is simply incorrect," he said.

The 7th Infantry Division is scheduled for activation on Oct. 1 of this year, and a commander is expected to be announced in a few weeks. Personnel will begin arriving in early summer.